Table grape production in Morocco starts to be stable
Morocco
Wednesday 11 July 2007
Production of early table grapes destined to exportation - begun in 1996 to satisfy the European market's requests - now begins to be more stable.
The surface remains around 1.200 ha, the same as the previous campaigns and exports in 2005/2006 amounted 11.590 tons.
For this campaign, export forecasts are around 10 and 11.000 tons.
Europe is the main destination market: almost half products are destined to the UK, being most of deliveries made between May and July.
Harvesting usually begins at end May or beginning of June, lasting two months and half as maximum.
This year, not very favourable weather conditions have caused a delay of at least ten days: obviously postponing early harvesting makes profitability to be lost.
The region of Marrakech hosts 90% of the Moroccan table grape production, which needs average investments around 4.500 euros per hectare and some annual costs around 5.000 euros per ha.
The Moroccan grape is suffering from the produce coming from Egypt, which exports to the EU four times as much produce and whose cultivated surface progressively grows thanks to Chile', U.S.' and Gulf Countries' investments.
The surface remains around 1.200 ha, the same as the previous campaigns and exports in 2005/2006 amounted 11.590 tons.
For this campaign, export forecasts are around 10 and 11.000 tons.
Europe is the main destination market: almost half products are destined to the UK, being most of deliveries made between May and July.
Harvesting usually begins at end May or beginning of June, lasting two months and half as maximum.
This year, not very favourable weather conditions have caused a delay of at least ten days: obviously postponing early harvesting makes profitability to be lost.
The region of Marrakech hosts 90% of the Moroccan table grape production, which needs average investments around 4.500 euros per hectare and some annual costs around 5.000 euros per ha.
The Moroccan grape is suffering from the produce coming from Egypt, which exports to the EU four times as much produce and whose cultivated surface progressively grows thanks to Chile', U.S.' and Gulf Countries' investments.